Alisa J. Baker

Partner Alisa J. Baker is a nationally recognized equity/executive compensation expert who specializes in counseling individual executives on the full range of compensation-related matters, including:

• Preparation and negotiation of executive employment agreements, severance/separation agreements, consulting agreements, change in control agreements and individual equity arrangements, including representation of partners and company founders.
  


• Representation of senior executives, company founders and employee-stockholders on their rights in merger & acquisition ("M&A") transactions and venture capital financings, including group and individual representation for "golden parachute," deferred compensation and equity structuring matters.
  


• Representation of senior lawyers, including corporate chief legal officers and general counsel, as well as law firm partners, with respect to individual employment, compensation and severance matters.
  


• Counseling on employee rights with respect to compensation matters, including stock opton/restricted stock plans, non-equity performance plans, nonqualified deferred compensation arrangements and fringe benefits, executive compensation assessment and compensation committee review procedures.
  


• Expert witness and consulting services for equity compensation-related litigation.

Alisa is the author of two books on equity compensation: The Stock Options Book (12th Ed.: 2011), a comprehensive overview (used as the core text for the Santa Clara University/Certified Equity Professional Institute (CEPI) credentialing program), and The Law Of Equity Compensation (2006)(Baker and Rosen)(updated annually), a treatise on equity compensation-related litigation. Her articles have appeared in publications ranging from The Wall Street Journal to the Journal of Taxation, and she is a frequent contributor to on-line and print journals in her field. Alisa is regularly quoted in, and sourced by, such news outlets as the San Jose Mercury News, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Recorder, and Bloomberg News. A popular speaker, her engagements have included numerous appearances before industry groups such as the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals, the National Center for Employee Ownership and the Society for Human Resources Management. She was a founding member of the Board of Advisors of the Certified Equity Professional Institute, and currently serves on the MyStockOptions Board of Advisors, the myNQDC Board of Advisors and the NCEO Stock Option Advisory Board. She was a longtime member of the editorial board of the Journal of Employee Ownership Law and Finance. In San Francisco, Alisa is Managing Director of Three Girls Theatre Company and a member of the Board of Directors of Playground. She served on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center.

Alisa received her B.A. and M.A. in English with honors, and her M.S. in higher education with distinction from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She earned her J.D. with honors from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., where she was an associate editor of the Georgetown Law Journal. She has been a Teaching Fellow at Stanford Law School and an adjunct lecturer in Executive Compensation at Golden Gate University. In 2009, Alisa was elected to serve as a Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel, a recognition by her peers of her distinguished accomplishments in the field.

Prior to establishing Levine & Baker LLP with partner Richard E. Levine, Alisa was a partner with the Mountain View law firm GCA Law Partners LLP (formerly General Counsel Associates), and before that practiced with the employee benefits group at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and the tax group at Fenwick & West. During 2000-2001, she served as Executive Vice President/General Counsel of Snapfish.com Corporation in San Francisco.

Alisa can be reached at (415)391-2995 or use our on-line form to send her an e-mail. Download Alisa Baker's bio here (PDF, 122KB). You can also download Alisa's complete resume (PDF, 87KB) including publications.